This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History

by T. R. Fehrenbach

  There was no place left to go, and all across the thin Perimeter Line American soldiers were stiffening. Hatred for the enemy was beginning to sear them, burning through their earlier indifference to the war. And everywhere, the first disastrous shock of combat was wearing off. Beaten down and bloody from the hard lessons of war, troops were beginning to listen to their officers, heed what their older sergeants told them.

  A man who has seen and smelled his first corpse on the battlefield soon loses his preconceived notions of what the soldier's trade is all about. He learns how it is in combat, and how it must always be. He becomes a soldier, or he dies.

  The men of the 1st Cavalry, the 2nd, 24th, and 25th divisions in Korea were becoming soldiers. For underneath the misconceptions of their society, the softness and mawkishness, the human material was hard and good.

  There had been many brave men in the ranks, but they were learning that bravery of itself has little to do with success in battle. On line, most normal men are afraid, have been afraid, or will be afraid. Only when disciplined to obey orders quickly and willingly, can such fear be controlled. Only when superbly trained and conditioned against the shattering experience of war, only knowing almost from rote what to do, can men carry out their tasks come what may. And knowing they are disciplined, trained, and conditioned brings pride to men—pride in their own toughness, their own ability; and this pride will hold them true when all else fails.

  After 12 September 1950, though heavy fighting continued, the situation about Taegu and elsewhere never seemed so black again. Now it was the enemy who was beginning to crumble, as Americans learned their lessons, and learned them well. Erwin Rommel had written that he had never seen any troops so inept at first as Americans in battle—or any who learned the hard lessons more quickly once the chips were down.

  And while the most desperate hours of the men within the Perimeter were passing, a second battle had been raging in their rear, back in the continental United States. When American soldiers went into action, it had become customary to provide them with a free issue of candy, cigarettes—and beer. In the places American troops fought, there were rarely any handy taverns or supermarkets.

  Reported to the home front, the "beer issue" rapidly became a national controversy. Temperance, church, and various civic groups bombarded the Pentagon and Congress with howls of protest against the corruption of American youth. One legislator, himself a man who took a brew now and then, tried a flanking attack against the complainers, saying on the floor of the House, "Water in Korea is more deadly than bullets!"

  But no one either polled the troops for their opinion or said openly that a man who was old enough to kill and be killed was also old enough to have a beer if he wanted it.

  Unable to shake the habit of acquiescence, the Army leaders bowed to the storm of public wrath. On 12 September the day the 3rd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, lost half its strength securing Hill 314, Far East Command cut off its beer ration. The troops could still buy beer, but only when and if the PX caught up with them.

  One soldier, asked his opinion of the move, said, "Let them people come over here and do the fighting if they don't like it."

  A high-ranking officer cautiously said that in his opinion "one can of beer never hurt anyone."

  The other remarks that have survived are not printable.

  Through the middle of September, U.N. and North Korean forces were still locked in close combat all around the Perimeter. But the tempo of fighting was gradually easing; both sides were showing signs of exhaustion. Neither combatant had sufficient men to pass troops in reserve for any length of time.

  By 14 September the issue had still not been decided. The NKPA had over run all South Korea except one tiny toehold in the southeast corner—but this toehold had given it unexpected trouble. Its timetable calling for the Communization of all Korea by 15 August had been wrecked. Worse, the Inmun Gun, the People's Army, had left the bones of its best men scattered along the Naktong River, and the survivors were rapidly bleeding themselves to death against American guns on the broiling hills and in the fetid valleys.

  The People's Army had almost shot its bolt. Less than 30 percent of the old China veterans remained, and these were dirty, tired, hungry, and in rags. Now only frequent summary executions and the threat of death could hold the newly drafted trainees in line. Now it was not American officers, but men like Senior Colonel Lee Hak Ku, who had come down from II Corps to serve as the 13th Division's chief of staff, who began to wonder how it all would end.

  The Inmun Gun had made its supreme effort, and failed—and the Americans were just beginning to fight.

  By the middle of September, a decision could not be long delayed.

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  15

  Seoul Recaptured

  Few operations in military history can match … the brilliant maneuver which has now resulted in the liberation of Seoul.

  — President Truman to General MacArthur, September 1950.

  AS AMERICANS discovered during 1861-1865, sustained land warfare is extremely costly in blood, and there has been a pronounced American distaste for such since. It is probably no accident that no great American tacticians have evolved since the War Between the States, while at the same time American strategical thinking has been superb. Having been once in the forest, United States military men tended to see it rather clearly—they had trouble with the trees, but rarely got lost in them.

  During 1941-1945, on the whole, German tactical execution of battle was superior to American; German officers and N.C.O.'s on unit level exhibited particular excellence in fighting. But throughout the war, American strategical planning remained first rate. While the Wehrmacht, under Hitler, floundered about from one crisis to another, American strategists never lost sight of their ultimate goal of destruction of the enemy.

  Because Germans considered battle itself important, their technique was bound to be good, but they became lost in the trees, winning battles, losing the war. After the fall of France, Germany's rulers never gave the Wehrmacht a clear, concise, strategical goal, because German planning never went beyond winning the West.

  In the East, German planners again and again wasted their substance on transitory gains, while the Red Army never lost sight of its ultimate aim, which was to win the war politically as well as militarily. Significantly, while in 1942 Hitler struck deep in the Caucasus for oil, Russian military men always planned offensives for political effect, and for the control of populations. And while the Wehrmacht won many a tactical victory on the 1,800-mile Russian front, by 1942 it had no hope of controlling the Russian people, or of ultimate triumph.

  Since the end of the Civil War, the United States has never been a massive land power. The ninety-two divisions raised in World War II never came close to matching either the almost four hundred of the Wehrmacht or the truly enormous field forces of the Soviets. But because the United States had Allies, such as Russians and Chinese, to keep the enemy heavily engaged on the ground, it was able to keep its commitment on land to a minimum.

  If war is to have any meaning at all, its purpose must be to establish control over peoples and territories, and ultimately, this can be done only as Alexander the Great did it, on the ground. But because after the Civil War America's Allies again and again took the terrible losses required to bleed the enemy, Americans gradually developed a belief in cheap victory.

  In World I, after Britain had suffered over 900,000 dead, and France more than 1,000,000, the United States threw her forces into the fray, to tip the scales at a loss of 50,000 killed in action.

  In World War II, Russia lost more than 20,000,000 both military and civilian. Even agonized, stumbling France, in six weeks of 1940, lost more combat dead upon the field of battle—almost 500,000—than did America during the entire war.

  Without this sacrifice of our Allies all over the world, World War II could not have ended as it did, with the United States relatively unscathed.

  More A
mericans died in thirty minutes at Antietam than died in thirty days of the Normandy beachhead.

  But by concentrating to a large degree on sea and air power, the United States was able to add the strategic punch that knocked the Axis out of the war. Japan, particularly, as an island empire was peculiarly vulnerable to air and sea attack. And the main body of the Imperial Japanese Army, on guard against the Soviets in Manchuria, was never engaged by the United States.

  It must never be forgotten that without the enormous holding power of American Allies, American industrial capacity of itself would not have been a determining factor. Even in 1944-1945, when the United States Army engaged an already strategically defeated Wehrmacht upon the ground of Europe, the effort strained the relatively small land combat power of America to the limit.

  By early 1945, men were being diverted in large numbers from the air forces and services into the infantry. No one had anticipated the replacements necessary once the Wehrmacht had been engaged.

  Thus, again, it cannot be considered accident that in 1950 the dominant power of the world was barely able to contain the ground attack of an almost illiterate nation of nine million—nor could it have done so without the enormous manpower sacrifices of its Korean ally.

  And thus, in the summer of 1950, General MacArthur, possessed of limited tactical ability on the ground, but with wonderful mobility of air and sea forces, instantly began to think in terms of strategic goals and sweeping maneuver rather than grinding infantry warfare across the face of Korea.

  As early as the first week of July, MacArthur instructed his chief of staff, General Almond, to begin planning for an amphibious operation against the west coast of Korea. MacArthur planned to use his preponderance of air and naval forces, plus the unique ability of the United States Marines to go ashore against a hostile beach, to take the enemy in the rear and, by cutting his lines of communications, destroy him.

  On joint Army, Navy, and Air Force levels, under the code name Bluehearts, work began immediately for this operation. Almond initially scheduled Bluehearts for 22 July. But the continuing collapse of the Korean front, requiring that virtually all available troops be committed to save the diminishing Perimeter, rendered Bluehearts impossible by 10 July.

  But, despite postponement after postponement, MacArthur never wavered in his belief that a sweep by sea around the enemy's flank was the most practical way to end the war. It was a concept MacArthur had used in humbling Japan, and it put United States strength to its best use, while minimizing American weaknesses.

  The Joint Strategic Plans and Operations Group, FECOM, had to discard plan after plan during July and August. The 2nd Infantry Division arrived from Fort Lewis, Washington; it had to be committed on the Naktong. The Provisional Marine Brigade—which MacArthur had requested particularly for the amphibious operation—had to be diverted to the peninsula to help save the Eighth Army. Only the 7th Division, already cannibalized by the demands of the understrength committed divisions, remained in Japan as nucleus.

  Of a number of plans postulated by the Joint Strategic Plans and Operations Group, MacArthur favored the one labeled 100-B: an amphibious landing at the port of Inch'on, coupled with a breakout from the Pusan Perimeter by Eighth Army. MacArthur chose Inch'on as a landing site because it was the second port of Korea, Intelligence reported it lightly defended, and it was only eighteen miles from Seoul, the nerve center of the Inmun Gun in South Korea.

  Seoul in U.N. hands would leave the North Koreans isolated from their bases in the north, and encircled by hostile forces. It was the ancient hammer and anvil concept, and MacArthur felt that a successful operation would result in the complete disintegration of the invaders.

  But Inch'on posed enormous difficulties. Between Inch'on and the open sea were expanses of mud flats, crossed by a tortuous channel. The tides at Inch'on were extreme—from 31.2 feet at flood to minus .5 at ebb. Landing craft could approach the harbor only during certain hours of the day. In the middle of September 1950, the Marines would have to land against the sixteen-feet-high seawalls surrounding Inch'on with only two hours of remaining daylight.

  By 20 July, however, MacArthur had decided on the Inch'on operation, and neither the outright opposition of the Navy and Marine Corps, nor the Joint Chiefs' lack of enthusiasm—even Army General Collins was dubious—could sway him. Admiral Doyle, who would command the naval forces, told MacArthur, "The operation is not impossible, but I do not recommend it."

  Marine General Lemuel Shepherd called on MacArthur and tried to argue him into a landing near Osan, below Seoul.

  But MacArthur, fighting from behind his five stars and his enormous prestige as America's leading field commander, was adamant. There were better landing sites in other areas, true, but none that could so quickly pinch the vital nerves of the enemy. MacArthur was willing to take risks, provided the campaign could be brought to a rapid close.

  In Washington, he received solid support from Secretary of Defense Johnson, who also wanted the war over as quickly as possible.

  He moved ahead with planning for Inch'on, and he bombarded the JCS with messages stating his position in highly eloquent terms. On 6 September he confirmed his verbal orders for the operation in writing; 15 September was set as D-Day. When the JCS again asked him for reconsideration, he told them in part:

  "There is no question in my mind as to the feasibility of the operation and I regard its chance of success as excellent."

  Finally, in a reply contrasting oddly with MacArthur's long and literate discourses, the JCS allowed him the green light:

  "We approve your plan and President has been so informed."

  Meanwhile, the landing forces were being assembled. A new corps HQ, the X, was activated to command them. When Ned Almond suggested that a corps commander should be found, MacArthur smiled and said, "It is you."

  But Almond was also to retain his other hat as FECOM chief of staff. MacArthur figured that the Korean fighting would come to a speedy close once the enemy were taken in the rear.

  Almond took command of X Corps. A blue-eyed, gray-haired man nearing sixty, and a VMI graduate, Almond possessed both a driving energy and a contempt for incompetence at any level. He was both respected and feared throughout FECOM. He drove all men hard, but drove himself as well. He could evoke the thunders if crossed, but he was a man completely loyal to Douglas MacArthur, and one whom MacArthur trusted implicitly.

  Around him, Ned Almond gathered a great number of handpicked staff. While many of Walker's staff had been thrown together in Korea under hasty conditions, Almond wished to avoid any obvious pitfalls.

  For ground troops X Corps would have the 7th Infantry Division in Japan and the newly assembled and arrived 1st Marine Division, Fleet Marine Force. Both these units had been put together almost from scratch.

  Each of the Marine regiments, the 1st and 7th, had been reactivated. Marines had been called from all over the world. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean was stripped of one battalion. Half of the ranks were filled with recalled reservists. While the first-arrived 5th Marines fought in the Naktong Bulge, the 1st and 7th Marines continued to debark in FECOM in bits and pieces.

  The 7th Division was in worse shape than even the Marines. As the weakened occupation divisions had been alerted for Korea, they had slowly cannibalized the 7th by drawing on it for fillers. During July, more than 100 officers and 1,500 key N.C.O.'s and men had been taken from the 7th; at half-strength, it was even weaker in cadre positions.

  For a number of days of August and September, despite the Eighth Army's shrieks of dismay, the entire infantry and artillery replacement pipeline was channeled into the 7th Division. And at MacArthur's order, Walker shipped 8,000 Koreans over from Pusan as KATUSA for the division. These unfortunates were all civilians, swept up from the streets and refugee camps of Pusan. They poured ashore in Japan bewildered, scared, and sick; many wore only sandals and shorts. Understanding no English, they were herded to American companies and batteries in packets of on
e hundred, where they were regarded with no high enthusiasm by American commanders.

  Only in the quality of its artillerymen and infantry weapons crews did the 7th Division stand out. The Artillery School at Sill, Oklahoma, and the Infantry School at Benning had been stripped of veteran N.C.O.'s to fill these posts.

  While the 7th Division gradually swelled to combat strength, the Marines and Eighth Army were having a jurisdictional squabble over Murray's 5th Regiment. Major General Oliver P. Smith, 1st Marine Division CG, wanted the 5th back before Inch'on.

  But Walton Walker, pressed for the Provisional Brigade's release, snapped, "I will not be responsible for the safety of Eighth Army's front if I lose the 5th Marine Regiment!"

  The Navy and Marine Corps informed MacArthur that without the return of the regiment they would not participate in the Inch'on landing.

  MacArthur said, "Tell Walker he will have to give up the Marines."

  The Marine Division sailed from Kobe, Japan on the 11th of September. The Army 7th Division embarked at Yokohama the same day, and on the 12th, and 5th Marines departed Pusan for a rendezvous somewhere at sea. Thirty minutes past midnight on 13 September, with MacArthur and party aboard, the command ship Mt. Mckinley weighed anchor at Sasebo.

  The X U.S. Army Corps, 70,000 men, was at sea. It had been formed from scratch, operating against time, manpower, and every known logistic difficulty, and its very conception embodied the best of American military capability. No other nation in the world had the means and knowledge to put such a force together in so short a time. No other nation would have attempted what MacArthur had planned from the first.

  Riding into rough seas from a near typhoon off Kyushu, the convoy steamed toward the most brilliant stroke of the Korean War.

  Because the Inch'on landing was so completely successful, and achieved at such light cost, there has been a tendency to discount both the hazards involved and Douglas MacArthur's courage in holding fast to his original plan. Whatever the early American participation in the Korean conflict had been, amphibious assault by X Corps was no small operation. It involved more ships and men than most of the island operations of the Pacific War, and it could be accomplished only because of the skills and knowledge acquired by the Navy and Marine Corps during that war.